just like we have to actively work on unlearning sexism and and racism and ableism and all sorts of shit it feels like americans also have to unlearn being bad at thinking communally
A quote graphic featuring a portion of Natasha Oladokun's poem. It reads: decked in black from scalp to heel scythe in hand ready and eager to meet yourself pounding at your own door for all the talk you keep hearing these days about the need for gallows humor you have to wonder who is putting what or whom on the scaffold as you drive Old Lynchburg Road so curved and steep you cannot see the faint parting of light lying beyond it
A photograph of poet Natasha Oladokun. She has long, dark curly hair, tattoos, and is wearing a flannel shirt.
“There is power in naming, as today’s poem reminds us," host @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1390 of The Slowdown. "Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Nor should you."
Read “The Poem Climbs the Scaffold and Tells You What It Sees" by @natashaoladokun.bsky.social: bit.ly/49At8by
Lust (I) by @natashaoladokun.bsky.social
From @yalereview.bsky.social
🙏🏽
🥹 he deserves it!
Happy to have a new queer poem out at @yalereview.bsky.social 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
smaller. bombs
Each of us is here now because in one way or another we share a commitment to language and to the power of language, and to the reclaiming of that Janguage which has been made to work against us. In the transformátion of silence into language and action, it is vitally necessary for each one of us to establish or examine her function in that transformation and to recognize her role as vital within that transformation. For those of us who write, it is necessary to scrutinize not only the truth of what we speak, but the truth of that language by, which we speak it. For others, it is to share and spread also those words that are meaningful to us. But primarily for us all, it is necessary to teach by living and speaking those truths which we believe and know beyond understanding. Because in this way alone we can survive, by taking part in a process of life that is creative and continuing, that is growth.
#FreePalestine
“For those of us who write, it is necessary to scrutinize not only the truth of what we speak, but the truth of that language by which we speak it.”
–Audre Lorde, “Transformation of Silence into Language and Action”
Free Palestine motherfuckers
black paramore fans are the backbone of society
Found each other!!!
I've officially migrated my newsletter away from Substack! (And away from a paid subscription model overall.)
Here's how and why I did it:
Whenever I try to talk about the Blitter fiasco of 2017 people look at me like I’m a madwoman
Guess I’m crawling back here
Literally that outfit
So glad to be in such a stacked issue. 💖
www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/derric...
André Leon Talley BY DERRICK AUSTIN lordly lantern tall neon doyen dear to orated tenderly on art or a trend learned (Eden Tyndale Lear Eeyore Yoda Erato Leander Leda Troy Dante Donatella Leontyne) ornately real annealed oleander lonely eye
I’m in the September issue of Poetry Magazine with two poems including this anagram elegy for André Leon Talley.
[middle of lunch rush] Are you mad at me chef
Grandiloquent Word of the Day - Sepia-toned graphic in baroque Victorian typeface with drawing of a woman in a black, Victorian dress and an odd hat with a pole on it & an attached pot. She is also wearing clock parts attached to the lower part of her dress.
Ostrobogulous [OS-truh-BAWG-yuh-luhs]
(adj.)
-Slightly risqué/indecent; bawdy/slightly off-colour
-Bizarre, interesting, or unusual
-Harmlessly mischievous
Used in a sentence:
“I can honestly say that I’ve never met anyone quite so ostrobogulous as Lady Octavia.”
My book:
https://bit.ly/GWOTDbook
We're open for proposals for craft workshops/panel discussions for the @barrelhouse.bsky.social conference in Philly on 9/23! We pay $50 per participant. No fee to submit. Send us good stuff! https://barrelhouse.submittable.com/submit/270714/conversations-and-connections-philadelphia-2023-proposals
untitled poem by Lucille Clifton surely i am able to write poems celebrating grass and how the blue in the sky can flow green or red and the waters lean against the chesapeake shore like a familiar, poems about nature and landscape surely but whenever i begin "the trees wave their knotted branches and…” why is there under that poem always an other poem?
Good morning let’s read Lucille Clifton together ☀️☀️☀️☀️
cannot believe that we taught rocks to whisper Secret Numbers so vast that their names have never before and will never be spoken again in the long span of human time, and we use them to key databases for e-commerce systems
“We *are* our final vocabulary, and how we use it. / There is no secret contingency. / There’s only the rearrangement, the redescription / Of little and mortal things. / There’s only this single body, this tiny garment / Gathering the past against itself, making it otherwise.”
–Charles Wright
Okay poet!!! 😂😂
